Viola Davis to Star in BEAUTIFUL CREATURES and ENDER’S GAME

It’s a good day to be a cast member of The Help. We’ve already reported a couple of high-profile casting stories regarding Octavia Spencer and Jessica Chastain, and now the third Oscar-nominated actress from The Help has booked not one, but two new gigs. Best Actress nominee Viola Davis is set as the lead in Beautiful Creatures, and will take a supporting role in Ender’s Game. Directed by Richard LaGravenese (P.S. I Love You), the film is an adaptation of the novel by Margaret Stohl and Kami Garcia and centers on two star-crossed teens who uncover dark secrets about their families, their history and their town. Davis will play a seer who looks after the boy and his father after the boy’s death. Beautiful Creatures is the first in a series of novels, and Warner Bros. is hoping that the film will kick off a franchise.

Hit the jump for more, including the addition of Davis to the increasingly impressive ensemble for Ender’s Game.

Additionally, Variety reports that Davis has joined the adaptation of Ender’s Game. Gavin Hood (X-Men Origins: Wolverine)directs and Asa Butterfield, Hailee Steinfeld, Abigail Breslin, Ben Kingsley, and Harrison Ford round out the cast that seems to get better by the day. Davis will play a military psychologist who is tasked with overseeing the emotional welfare of the young trainees.

Here’s the synopsis for Ender’s Game:

In order to develop a secure defense against a hostile alien race’s next attack, government agencies breed child geniuses and train them as soldiers. A brilliant young boy, Andrew “Ender” Wiggin lives with his kind but distant parents, his sadistic brother Peter, and the person he loves more than anyone else, his sister Valentine. Peter and Valentine were candidates for the soldier-training program but didn’t make the cut–young Ender is the Wiggin drafted to the orbiting Battle School for rigorous military training.

Ender’s skills make him a leader in school and respected in the Battle Room, where children play at mock battles in zero gravity. Yet growing up in an artificial community of young soldiers, Ender suffers greatly from isolation, rivalry from his peers, pressure from the adult teachers, and an unsettling fear of the alien invaders. His psychological battles include loneliness, fear that he is becoming like the cruel brother he remembers, and fanning the flames of devotion to his beloved sister.

Is Ender the general Earth needs? But Ender is not the only result of the genetic experiments. The war with the Buggers has been raging for a hundred years, and the quest for the perfect general has been underway for almost as long. Ender’s two older siblings are every bit as unusual as he is, but in very different ways. Between the three of them lie the abilities to remake a world. If the world survives, that is. [Amazon]

Here’s the synopsis for Beautiful Creatures:

Lena Duchannes is unlike anyone the small Southern town of Gatlin has ever seen, and she’s struggling to conceal her power, and a curse that has haunted her family for generations. But even within the overgrown gardens, murky swamps and crumbling graveyards of the forgotten South, a secret cannot stay hidden forever.

Ethan Wate, who has been counting the months until he can escape from Gatlin, is haunted by dreams of a beautiful girl he has never met. When Lena moves into the town’s oldest and most infamous plantation, Ethan is inexplicably drawn to her and determined to uncover the connection between them.

In a town with no surprises, one secret could change everything. [Amazon]